POW camp war diaries

[Simon R]

Did WWI POW camps in UK keep war diaries?

Did WWII POW camps in UK keep war diaries?

I think maybe not, but I've seen refs. to 'war diary extracts from selected camps'.

[stevem]

Not sure about diaries but in WWI Army Form F 733 was in use in POW camps.

The form is slightly larger than A4 and consists of four sides. The front page is headed as folows:

Supply Account (blank left for name) Sub-district or Command for (blank for date to be added) Military Detention Barrack, Military Prison, or Barrack Detention Rooms at (blank left for name) Abstract of soliders under Sentence during Month of (blank) 19..

The form opens up and across the two pages is headed Statement of Provisons received and consumed for the various diets from (blank date to be filled in) 19.. There is an extensive list of provisions printed on the form: bread, cheese, tea, flour, coffee, jam, bacon, fish, biscuits, oatmeal, salt, sugar, rice etc. Various scales of diets were identified, scale 1 was for troops, scale 2 was for prisoners and scale 3 was for working parties.

The reverse of the form is blank.

In August 1918 at Leigh POW there were five POWs listed in detention serving between 2 and 5 days detention. The Statement of Provisions for the period 27 July to 30 August 1918 include the following:

Receipts - cheese 910 lbs, tea 530 lbs, flour 319 lbs, oatmeal 3405 lbs and rice 2393 lbs, total issues were cheese 765 lbs, tea 451 lbs, flour 247 lbs and 1853 lbs rice.

Regards

Steve

[Simon R]

That's interesting, thanks.

So we might find material relating to supplies, that's useful.

I can't track down any material relating to the camp I'm interested in on PRO catalogue, I suppose a lot of it would still be closed from end of WWII.

[Hazel Basford]

Is there a collection of these forms in any location, or have you come across only the one referred to?

[stevem]

Hi Hazel

The one I referred to is one that is in my collection.

Regards

Steve